tailscale-k8s-operator

packaged by Chainguard

Chainguard Container for tailscale-k8s-operator

Tailscale is a WireGuard-based mesh VPN

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale-k8s-operator:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Available Images

Tailscale ships as a family of Chainguard Containers. The following images are currently available:

• tailscale — the userspace containerboot + tailscale + tailscaled runtime used to join a tailnet from inside a container.
• tailscale-k8s-operator — the Tailscale Kubernetes operator, deployable via the upstream tailscale-operator helm chart.

cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale:latest
cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale-k8s-operator:latest

When the Kubernetes operator is deployed, it spawns proxy pods using the tailscale image — point proxyConfig.image.repository at cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale in the helm chart so the proxy sidecars use the Chainguard build too.

Getting Started

The Tailscale image allows for containers to join an existing Tailnet.

Prerequisites

• Create a Tailscale account
• Create a Tailnet
• Create an auth key or OAuth client
  • If deploying the Kubernetes operator, an OAuth client must be used as the operator utilizes the OAuth client to mint auth keys for itself

Example Usage

Docker:

docker run \
 --name tailscale \
 -e TS_AUTHKEY=tskey-client-notAReal-OAuthClientSecret1Atawk?ephemeral=true \
 -e TS_EXTRA_ARGS=--advertise-tags=tag:container \
 cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale:latest

Helm repository setup:

Tailscale publishes the operator chart from its own Helm repo. Add it once before installing:

helm repo add tailscale https://pkgs.tailscale.com/helmcharts
helm repo update

The chart is named tailscale-operator (so the fully qualified reference is tailscale/tailscale-operator), and is sourced from tailscale/cmd/k8s-operator/deploy/chart in the upstream repo.

Helm command:

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  tailscale-operator \
  tailscale/tailscale-operator \
  --namespace=tailscale \
  --create-namespace \
  --set-string operatorConfig.image.repository="cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale-k8s-operator" \
  --set-string operatorConfig.image.tag="latest" \
  --set-string proxyConfig.image.repository="cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale" \
  --set-string proxyConfig.image.tag="latest" \
  --set-string oauth.clientId="<OAauth client ID>" \
  --set-string oauth.clientSecret="<OAuth client secret>" \
  --wait

Helm values (values.yaml):

A complete values.yaml that points both the operator's own image AND the proxy sidecars the operator spawns at our Chainguard builds:

# values.yaml
oauth:
  clientId:     "<OAuth client ID>"
  clientSecret: "<OAuth client secret>"

# The operator container itself.
operatorConfig:
  image:
    repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale-k8s-operator
    tag: "latest"
    pullPolicy: Always

# The tailscale image used by the proxy pods the operator spawns for
# each ingress/egress/connector resource. The operator reads this via
# the `PROXY_IMAGE` env baked into its Deployment template, so any
# proxy resource subsequently created by the operator inherits it.
proxyConfig:
  image:
    repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/tailscale
    tag: "latest"

Install with the file above:

helm upgrade --install tailscale-operator tailscale/tailscale-operator \
  --namespace=tailscale --create-namespace \
  -f values.yaml --wait

For more information, refer to the Tailscale documentation for Docker or Kubernetes.

Troubleshooting

The TS_USERSPACE environment variable is True by default which utilizes userspace networking rather than kernel networking.

For more information, refer to the userspace networking documentation or the kernel vs. netstack comparison.

If TS_USERSPACE is False, then additional capabilities will need to be specified for the container to avoid running the pod in privileged mode.

For Docker: --cap-add NET_ADMIN For Kubernetes:

securityContext:
  capabilities:
      add:
      - NET_ADMIN

Documentation and Resources

Documentation for installing and using Tailscale can be found on the Tailscale project website:

• Install
• Guides
  • Kubernetes

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard's free tier of Starter container images are built with Wolfi, our minimal Linux undistro.

All other Chainguard Containers are built with Chainguard OS, Chainguard's minimal Linux operating system designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a development, or -dev, variant.

In all other cases, including Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest or with a specific version number, the container images include only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they include additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to copy artifacts from the -dev variant into a more minimal production image.

Need additional packages?

To improve security, Chainguard Containers include only essential dependencies. Need more packages? Chainguard customers can use Custom Assembly to add packages, either through the Console, chainctl, or API.

To use Custom Assembly in the Chainguard Console: navigate to the image you'd like to customize in your Organization's list of images, and click on the Customize image button at the top of the page.

Learn More

Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.